This website or its third-party tools use cookies which are necessary to its functioning and required to improve your experience. By clicking the consent button, you agree to allow the site to use, collect and/or store cookies.

ux

UX design is the basis for why and how customers choose to interact and experience your brand. From a phone call to exploring your website, to how a live event is produced, UX design all plays a critical role in the overall brand experience. Here are 9 user experience strategies to improve the brand experience for your organization.

Definition of UX as it Relates to Brand Experience

The process of providing greater customer satisfaction and enhancing loyalty by making improvements to the ease of use, overall usability, and pleasure experienced by the customer.

1. User Research is Vital in UX

One of the most common pitfalls when it comes to entrepreneurs developing a product or service for their audience is the fact that they have not taken the time to understand what their audience actually wants. Designing a product or service in a vacuum can lead to a failed offering. Why?

Simply because the entrepreneur didn’t take the time to figure out what their potential customers want. User research is vital in user experience design. It serves as the basis for how and why a product or service is developed; to best serve the customer.

Build in a process to survey and have a beta test group of ideal users who can provide genuine feedback to you. This feedback loop will become essential to developing an experience customers want to interact with.

Remember, the user experience of your product/service/event will be imprinted into the brand experience. In other words, people will make the correlation between the experience they have interacting with your brand’s products and services with the overall impression of the brand. The two are very closely linked.

2. There is Not a Single Standard UX Process

While there may not be a unified body that can provide a rigid process to follow to develop an outstanding user experience design, one of the greatest aspects of UX is its flexibility.

Your brand and the experience you are offering are distinctive and unlike anything else. Embrace the UX design process to hone in on what makes your brand stand out. Take advantage of your brand’s uniqueness and let it shine through your user experience.

3. UX Design is a Combination of Best Practices Based on Research

With a background in design, one thing I know for certain is that design is made up of a combination of best practices based on proven research. What do I mean? If you look at architectural illustrations and start to break down the components that make up the artwork, what do you notice?

If you look at a series of architectural illustrations and start to break down the components that make up the artwork, what do you notice? You may start to see similar, if not the same objects appearing across multiple architectural renderings. You may start to notice a distinct style the artwork has and how each piece, while they may not be related, share similar aspects, objects, styles, and pieces to create a similar experience.

When you think of design a web experience, most often you start with researching what is most appealing and aligned with your brand. Then you want to survey your audience to determine if what you have chosen meets their needs as well. From there, it is an iterative, detailed process to develop a unique design and experience for your brand.

4. Attention to Detail Enhances the UX Brand Experience for the Customer

Detail matters.

Now more than ever. Across multiple online platforms, multiple mediums (print, video, audio, face to face, etc.) – details enhance the user experience and further help to develop a consistent brand experience for the customer.

When working with an online experience, small details such as an informative error message or a few descriptive words to make a process more transparent can make a significant difference to the user experience.

5. Offering a Variety of Choices Can Hinder the UX Design

When you allow this to take place, the user isn’t suddenly able to make the best decision. In fact, the opposite occurs. The user may suddenly feel overwhelmed, inundated with choices and information and a lack of understanding as to how to proceed.

By simplifying the choices and developing a transparent road map to guide the user from the starting point to the desired outcome, your brand experience not only puts the customer at ease but gives them a tangible way to follow along. A user is much more likely to get involved in a complicated process when they can see the big picture and evaluate each step along throughout the journey.

Accessibility through interfaces – long gone are the days when your brand may only have a website that can be accessed on a desktop/laptop only. In 2017, if your brand does not have the digital assets in place to provide an accessible, friendly user experience across multiple devices, there is a major flaw in how your brand is communicating to its’ audience.

Accessibility to information – this refers to account information a customer may have given to a brand. Think Domino’s Pizza, Starbucks, or even Facebook. Customers of these brands have agreed to sign up and provide their information to these brands. In return, they receive a physical product (pizza or coffee), or access to connect with others around the world. In doing so, the brand’s have allowed the customer to log in and access their information 24/7 without interruption (sans an internet outage).

Both of these types of accessibility play into the user experience and, on a larger level the brand experience.

7. Usability Testing is Fundamental to a Successful UX Design

The first strategy mentioned in this list was to include user feedback into the development of your user experience. Once you have developed the user experience for your product, service, event, or website, the next step is to have users test the experience and provide feedback. This is different from collecting information from users as you develop the experience.

Usability testing allows users to fully interact and engage with your product (i.e. membership site) and provide feedback as far as bugs, missing features, poor design, or missing functionality. By putting this component into your project timeline, it will help to iterate faster and get a product out to your audience that they will love that much more.

Allowing your best customers to provide feedback is also an experience in and of itself. By allowing them to peek behind the curtain, your brand builds trust, can feel more authentic, and create a deeper sense of appreciation for the brand. Plus, people like to feel helpful. If they can provide an insight that helps a brand develop a better product, they will be happy to share that story with others, which is free, positive exposure for the brand. A win-win!

Plus, people like to feel helpful. If they can provide an insight that helps a brand develop a better product, they will be happy to share that story with others, which is free, positive exposure for the brand. A win-win!

8. UX Plays a Role in Designing the Brand Experience

With the previous seven strategies, you may have noticed a theme. That theme is that UX design plays a big role in designing the brand experience. The two are intertwined, one not far off from the other. There is even some overlap, though both each has distinctive qualities.

How a brand is perceived is based, in part to how their product or service’s experience is delivered. If for example, you order from Amazon.com quite often, the overall brand experience will be perceived by how quickly Amazon is able to ship your orders to you.

Amazon’s brand experience is made up of its’ groundwork (vision, brand promise, mission, core values, and guiding principles), how it performs (usability of its’ site and shipping orders), and how its customers perceive the brand.

9. UX, Like Brand Experience, Should be Applied Across Your Organization

We know that the brand experience exists throughout your organization, in every internal and external interaction. UX design should be applied in the same manner. Internally, how do your employees interact with company resources? Is there a common intranet that everyone uses? Does one exist that no one uses? There may be an opportunity to redesign the intranet to develop a simple to use, easy to navigate user experience, which could spur more engagement, interaction, and brainstorms from your team members.

On top of that, your brand could study how employees interact with certain aspects of design on a site and compare that to how users/customers act with the same design. This could provide incredible insights into developing a UX design customized to your brand’s audience’s specific needs.

Enjoyed This Post? Share it With Others!

How do you use UX design to develop exceptional brand experiences? Where do you get stuck? Let me know in the comments or through social media.

Last night I presented on branding at Powered by Social Media event, hosted by Taylor Gaines and held at Prime and Provisions. The event was well attended and I met a lot of great people working on exciting projects. Below is a short recap on my presentation

I first want to thank Taylor for the opportunity to speak at her amazing event, Powered by Social Media that has been held throughout downtown Chicago this past year. There was an excellent turn out of people who were genuinely interested in the topic that I presented on.

The main topic for the event was on creating a branded world. That is, how do you develop more than a transaction-based business and turn it into a deeper connection and relationship with your ideal customers? The quote above from Omni Resorts intrigued me for many reasons.

Brand experiences deliver on your brand promise. They increase the perception of your brand. They evoke emotions. They can be designed to deliver consistent results repeatedly.

Brand experiences are one of the highest stages of intimacy a brand can have with their clients and customers. MBMLM describes this intimacy as fusing – or when a consumer and brand become inexorably linked and co-identified. The identities of the consumer and the brand begin to merge and become a form of mutual realization and expression. This leads to a greater propensity of consumers to pay more for a brand’s products.

But how do you do this? How can you any brand create experiences that fuse and form tight-knit relationships and command higher premium prices?

It starts with a set of core beliefs and values of the brand. The brand must have a clear set of core values that will guide the organization forward, no matter who is leading the company. In other words, whether the founder leaves the company, the foundational principles set will remain unchanged. They are the basis for all decisions a brand makes. The foundational principles are:

Vision

Mission

Brand Promise

Core Values

Guiding Principles

Forming these components and having the brand and organization adapt them into daily use is what I call setting the groundwork. Every decision, every action, product line, new service, new hire, operations, marketplace positioning, culture – all stem from these foundational principles.

Once these foundational elements are set, the physical and digital brand experiences that your audience interact with on a daily basis are the amplification and personification of your core values and beliefs. The designed experience is intended to bring out those values through strategic placement of elements, visuals, and using the other senses to immerse and captivate the customer.

Did you make it out to the event last night? Leave a comment below and let me know your favorite part! Connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Half-Day & Full Day Brand Strategy Workshop Packages

We’ll work one-on-one in a private setting with you to develop the foundational elements of an unshakable brand: vision, mission, brand promise, core values, and guiding principles. At the end of the session, you’ll have a clear picture of what your brand’s foundation, what it stands for, and how to attract your ideal audience.

Digital technologies are enhancing and disrupting the brand experience across the spectrum – from how pizzas are ordered and delivered to how household appliances function. It is an emerging revolution that is causing lots of discussions, both positive and negative. In the midst of this revolution is the brand experience and how it too, will need to adapt to keep up with digital technologies.

Softbank’s Pepper is teaming up with MasterCard.

For a while, it appeared that the digital revolution would only affect those industries centered around technology. But as technology improves and advances, it has infiltrated into industries that some thought would be protected. Professional services, such as law firms, are now beginning to test and use artificial intelligence in their work. The newest AI lawyer is named Ross. Banking is being heavily disrupted with the rise of mobile apps and banks no longer needing physical locations to succeed.

One segment of the fast-food market that has rapidly adapted with new technologies is pizza. Pizza Hut restaurants across Asia are deploying a robotic waiter, Pepper. The robotic waiter can take orders, accept digital payments, can make small talk with customers, and give food recommendations.

Domino’s Pizza allows customers to place an order with a tweet, track their orders in real-time, and get notification when their order is sent out for delivery.

The brand experience for the customer changes quite dramatically. As a consumer, the brand experience is enhanced through added layers of information. Transparency into the process for the consumer builds trust and shows the steps along the way.

For the brand, transparency into the process holds them accountable to their brand promise. If the brand cannot consistently deliver on the brand promise, their consumers will let them know about it.

Transparency Leads to Brand Intimacy

Before the rise of technology, private businesses were less likely to divulge their process to the public or their consumers. Now, if a brand is not being upfront in the customer journey, it can feel like mistrust.

MBLM recently put out their report on brand intimacy. What I found extremely interesting was their analysis into brand intimacy. They write:

Fusing is the highest stage of intimacy, when a consumer and a brand become inexorably linked and co-identified. In this stage, the identities of the consumer and the brand begin to merge and become a form of mutual realization and expression. Why does this matter? Our research has revealed that the higher the percentage of fusing customers a brand has, the greater propensity consumers have to pay more for its products. In addition, intimate brands endure and outperform the S&P and Fortune 500 indexes in profit and revenue over ten years.

Brands adapting technology to provide better customer service and an exceptional brand experience are fusing with their ideal customers. To think that a brand can merge with its ideal customer and create a relationship bond so interwoven is incredible. It is the ultimate BrandedWorld.

When you think of a brand like Starbucks, you can see how their ideal customer is fusing with the brand. Starbucks has a close relationship with their customers, seeing them once a day in their stores, if not more, interacting with them via social channels, and updating them about specials and their balance through the mobile app. Consumers who are all in on Starbucks appreciate this communication and welcome it as part of their daily lives.

How Can you Take Advantage of Technology to Deliver an Exceptional Brand Experience?

The question that keeps coming up is the fact that technology companies can create these experiences, but how can non-technology brands compete? In order to compete, non-tech brands must start utilizing software off the shelf that can be customized to fit their needs. There is no excuse why any company cannot utilize technology to create a stronger bond between their brand and their ideal customers. Here are a few simple ways to take action:

Utilize Social Media with a Clear Intent – everyone says to get on social. So your brand has a few profiles. But what is the purpose of your brand on those channels? What are you working to accomplish with each channel? SM can be a first step towards enhancing the brand experience you deliver.

Think about the platforms that your brand currently has (corporate office, retail stores, websites, apps, live events, podcasts, email newsletters) – these platforms are all touchpoints into your ecosystem or BrandedWorld. What are each of those experiences like for the customer? Do the platforms enhance one another? Are they fragmented? Working out the kinks so that a customer going from platform to platform or channel to platform is smooth is another building block in creating an unshakable brand and an exceptional brand experience. Need help? Check out our services.

Make your Customer Journey More Transparent – brands and organizations may believe they are communicating very well to their clients. However, when you interview the clients, the feedback is often the exact opposite. Getting clear on the customer journey with your clients – and making that a transparent process that the entire company adapts – can be enough of a spark to elevate your brand. You’ll gain more brand trust, both parties will understand where they are in the process and what’s next, and is a constant the client can depend on.

Closing Thoughts

Brand experience is continuing to shift and will play a larger role in how clients and customers interact with and trust brands. If your brand experience is misaligned and delivering inconsistently, your brand will lose trust quickly. The more transparent your brand can become, using technology as leverage, there is an opportunity to merge with your ideal and best customers, creating a synergistic bond and a lasting relationship.

What are your thoughts on how technology is disrupting and influencing brand experiences across industries? Leave a comment and let me know.